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INTRODUCTION. 

One who writes of the events of only fifty years ago must needs 
be careful not only to do justice to the dead, but to be considerate 
of the feelings of the living. What may be read on the following 
pages has not, I trust, been written prematurely. Most of the names 
found there are of men who deserve honor. Among these I enroll 
one who might otherwise seem to be mentioned with somewhat of 
reproach, John Hawkins Rountree. We can not blame him for being, 
in his early life, involved to some extent, in the system of slavery, 
and we rightly give him credit for his later alliance, with the anti- 
slavery cause which, doubtless, he had been taught to look upon with 
suspicion and dislike. 

Moreover, we need to remember that as the opinions and practice 
even of good men have, within a hundred years, undergone a change 
in regard to lotteries, so, within half that time, there has been wrought 
a moral revolution on the subject of slavery. The act emancipating 
slaves in the British colonies bears the signature of the predecessor 
of Queen Victoria. We notice with shame that the bench of bishops 
in the House of Lords voted almost to a man against this measure, 
just as the same ecclesiastical body voted against the Quaker Clark- 
son's bill to prohibit the African slave-trade. And yet these gen- 
tlemen held what, in the opinion of sundry people, is so high a pre- 
rogative that save for the kindly rendered service of those who pos- 
sess it, the Lord himself would find it impossible, without something 
in the nature of semi-miraculous intervention, to continue here on 
earth His true church! And in 1851, Moses Stuart of Andover, who 
introduced into America the broad-minded methods of German bib- 
lical scholarship, published an essay that was virtually a defense of 
Southern slavery. 

As what is now Wisconsin was once a part of the political unit 
that extended from the Mississippi eastward to Pennsylvania and 
Virginia — that is, of the Old Northwest Territory — there is abundant 
reason for the reference to the Ordinance of 1787. Among its prac- 
tical effects, not commonly noted, was, probably, the exodus of the 
French slaveholders from Kaskaskia and vicinity to Missouri, — to 
St. Genevieve, — whence Governor Dodge and General Tones brought 
slaves to what is now Wisconsin. Good was it for Illinois that she 
was rid, for the most part, of slaveholding by the French before 
Reynolds and his ilk began demanding, in the name of the Ameri- 



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INTRODUCTION. 



can settlers, the establishment there of the hateful system. It is 
well, perhaps, for our honor as a nation that the validity of the Great 
Ordinance was settled in the court of the people, and not tested by 
the pleas and proceedings of legal formalists. For such trial, had 
it come at all, must needs have taken place at a time when tin 
degrading influence of slavery was making itself felt upon the 
constitutions even of the older states. When there were but sixteen 
states in the Union, every one of them except South Carolina, ex- 
tended to negroes, as to whites, under certain conditions, the n I 
of suffrage. "When, just before the late war began, there were 
thirty-five states, colored men could vote, on terms of equality with 
whites, only in Xew England. And even there. Connecticut had 
followed the bad example of the majority of the states. In New 
York colored men could vote if possessed of property valued at not 
less than $250, and in Ohio mulattoes voted under a judicial decision 
that they were as much white men as they were negroes. 

Notwithstanding the single attempt to tolerate slavery in Ohio, 
and the desire of Indiana to be clothed upon with shame, the strug- 
gle to protect and establish slavery in Illinois and what is recorded 
in this little monograph, yet from the high viewpoint of the supreme 
law, it remains true as stated so eloquently by Senator Hoar at 
the Marietta centennial: '"Here was the first human government 
under which absolute civil and religious liberty has always pre- 
vailed. Here no witch was ever hanged or burned. When older 
states or nations, where the chains of human bondage have been 
broken, shall utter the proud boast, 'With a great price I obtained 
this freedom,' each sister of this imperial group. Ohio. Indiana. 
Illinois. Michigan and Wisconsin, may lift up her queenly head 
with the yet prouder answer, 'But I was free born.' " 

Two Rivers. Wisconsin, 
1896. May 21. 



NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 



The colonial structure reared by the French in North America 
may be described, at its greatest, as a vast arch with one abutment 
resting on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the other on the Gulf of 
Mexico.. Of this arch, the region between Lake Michigan and the 
Mississippi formed the keystone. Here the early traders found 
scarcely a break in that intra-continental water-course whose length 
equals the distance from Europe to America. Here some one — and 
I believe it was the Frenchmen who made the "voyage" of 1654-56; 
men unknown unless we may identify them, as I believe we may 
safely do, with Radisson and Groseilliers, — discovered the Upper 
Mississippi. The real discovery, however, was that of Wisconsin. 
( )nce on th.it stream, the explorer was really on part of the "every- 
where river." — for so. I believe, it is safe to render the Indian term 
that we, with a superfluity of sibilants, write Mississippi, — and there 
he would need no other guidance than that of its swift current to 
lead him to the main stream. 

The great river that thus bore Canadian explorers and, centuries 
later, northern soldiers southward was the principal route by which 
slavery was distributed throughout its own vast valley. On both 
sides of almost the entire length of the Mississippi, that is, from 
tin- Gulf of Mexico nearly to the Falls of St. Anthony, negroes have 
been held in slavery. 1 Frenchman, Spaniard, Briton and American have 
all been guilty of this great wrong. Vet there were no negroes in 
the first settlements made by civilized men beside the great river 
and its tributaries, for these pioneers came by way of the St. Lawrence 
and the Lakes. But even before New Orleans was founded, in 1718, 

1. Major [Lawrence] Taliaferro had inherited several slaves, which he used to 
hire to officers of the garrison. * * * * Iu May [1820], Captain [J.] Plympton, 
of the Fifth infantry, wished to purchase his negro woman Eliza, but he refused, 
as it was his intention, ultimately, to free his slaves. Another of his negro girls. 
Harriet, was married at the. fort [Snelling], the Major performing the ceremony, 
to the now historic Dred Scott, who was then a slave of Surgeon Emerson. The 
only person that ever purchased a slave to retain in slavery, was Alexis Bailly 
[himself partly of Indian blood], who bought a man of Major Garland. The Sioux, 
at first, had no prejudices against negroes. They called them "Black Frenchmen," 
and placing their hands on their woolly heads would laugh heartily.— "Explorers 
and Pioneers of Minnesota," by Edward D. N.eill. 



4 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 

there had begun in the new French settlements on the Gulf coast,, 
and so in the great realm to which the Mississippi is the natural 
entrance and outlet, a sad history whose last pages were to be writ- 
ten in the blood of the fathers and elder brothers of the men of this 
generation. D'Iberville, when on his expedition "to plant a colony 
on the Mississippi,"- made a stop at San Domingo. There he "took 
on board M. de Grave, a famous bucaneer, who some years before 
had surprised and pillaged the town of Vera Cruz." San Domingo 
in later years furnished slaves to the new colony, and I think it 
more than possible that some were brought on this first voyage of 
DTberville's. However that may be, there were in the colony, in 
May, 1713, "four hundred persons, including twenty negroes." 3 
Then it was that Cadillac, the founder, in July or August, 1701, 
of Detroit, arrived in the new colony to serve as governor general. 
The entire province, including all the region "between Carolina on 
the east and Old and New Mexico on the west," had, by royal 
decree dated 14th September, 1712, been transferred, as far as com- 
mercial, mining and certain other privileges were concerned, to Sieur 
Antoine Crozat. Permission was granted him, "if he find it proper 
to have blacks in the said country of the Illinois," to "send a ship 
every year to trade for them directly upon the coast of Guinea, taking 
permission from the Guinea company to do so." But "before Crozat's 
plans were fairly organized, the operations of the treaty of Utrecht 
debarred him from the importation of Africans. Its provisions 
had, in fact, transferred the control of the slave trade to England. 
a plan far-reaching enough to make the mother country responsible 
for the long bondage of the negro in America." 

Nevertheless it must be said that though Crozat's plans in regard 
to the importation of negroes from Africa were defeated, it must 
have been for reasons that do not appear in the treaty, for designs 
of the same sort were successfully carried out by the man} r -named 
company of which John Law was, at first, the controlling spirit. 
"On the 6th of June," 1719, two vessels "arrived from the coast of 
Guinea with five hundred negroes. * * In the beginning of July, 
1720, "the ship l'Hercule, sixteen guns, arrived at Dauphin [Ship] 
Island from Guinea, with a cargo of negroes for the colony. * * On 
the 17th [of March, 1721], the frigate l'Africain arrived with one 
hundred and eighty negroes, being the remains of two hundred eighty 
which had embarked on board in Africa. On the 23d, le Due du 
Maine, thirty-six guns, arrived with three hundred and ninety-four 
negroes, being the remains of four hundred and fifty-three who had 



2. The colony, however, was not planted on the Mississippi but at Biloxi. 

3. La Harpe's "Establishment of the French in Louisiana," French's "Historical, 
lions of Louisiana," Part III., p. 39. 



NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 5 

-sailed from Africa about the same time. On the 4th of April, M. 
Berranger was sent to Cape Francais to purchase corn for the negroes, 
who were dying with hunger at Biloxi (Fort Louis). * * On the 
20th, the frigate la Nereide * * arrived with two hundred and 
ninety-four negroes, being the remains of three hundred and fifty 
which had been put on board. 4 He reported that the frigate le Charles. 
with a cargo of negroes, had been burnt at sea within sixty miles of 
the coast." We need not continue the dismal story— told by Benard 
-de La Harpe — any farther to be reminded of the fact that the mon- 
opoly granted to England by the 12th article of the treaty of Utrecht 
related to Spanish and not to French America. 

The royal proclamation creating Law's company gravely states 
that "in the settlement of the lands granted to the said company by 
these present letters, we have chiefly in view the glory of God, by 
procuring the salvation of the savage Indian and Negro inhabitants 
whom we wish to be instructed in the true religion." Perhaps this 
explains the seeming absurdity of beginning a decree (issued in 1724) 
regulating slavery with the command: "We enjoin the directors gen- 
eral of said company, and all our officers, to remove from said country 
[of Louisiana] all the Jews who may have taken up their abode 
there — the departure of whom, as declared enemies of the Christian 
name, we command within three months, including the day when 

■ presents are published, under pain of forfeiture of their bodies 
and estates." With the exception of this first article and a part of 
Article III., 5 the decree is devoted to slavery, and the treatment of 
es and other negroes. In regard to these matters the decree is 
quite as humane as we could expect. I fear that later slave codes 
would suffer in comparison. To be sure, the slave who ran away for 
the second time might be "hamstrung" and for the third offense 
of the sort be put to death. "A slave who. having struck his master, 
his mistress, or the husband of his mistress, or their children, shall 



4. The official estimate [of the population of Louisiana] in 1721. was 5,420, of 
whom six hundred were negroes. — Winsor, Vol. V., p. 49. 

5. "We prohibit any other religious rites than those of the Apostolic Roman 
Catholic church; requiring that those who violate this shall he punished as rehels 
disobedient to our commands." In mournful accord with this is a remark of La 
Harpe's. He has been speaking of the English ship found by Bienville in the 
Mississippi, 1699, September 16th. "On board of this vessel," he says, "was M. 
Secon, a French engineer, who gave secretly to M. Bienville a petition addressed to 
the king, professing to his majesty that if he would grant religious liberty to 
the colony, he would settle more than four hundred families on the Mississippi. 
This petition was forwarded to the minister. M. de Ponchartrain, who replied that 
the king would not suffer heretics to go from his kingdom for the purpose of forming 

In contrast with this unhappy policy we notice the fact that non- 
adherents of the church of England have been the very backbone and strength of the 
Jiritish colonies. 



6 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 

have produced a bruise, or the shedding of blood in the face, shall 
suffer capital punishment." But slavery must needs he cruel. '"The 
power of the master must be absolute to render the submission of 

the slave perfect." 11 

Whatever else, under the decree of 1724, might be done or left 
undone, we may be sure that slavery would spread as widely as 
seemed advantageous to the slaveholders. 7 For herein is ihe econom c 
danger of slavery, as in the making and selling of intoxicants, .that 
what is most hurtful to the community as a whole is immediately 
profitable to individuals. Accordingly, we are not surprised to learn 
that slavery was firmly established, under French authority, in the 
Illinois country. In 1721, according to Winsor, perhaps, however, in 
1726, Phillippe Francois Renault brought to Kaskaskia, or at leasl 
to the region above the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi, 
"some two hundred miners and live hundred slaves." In 1750 a 
Jesuit missionary, probably Father Vivier, quoted by Chief Justice 
Sidney Breese, found eleven hundred whites and three hundred blacks 
in five Illinois villages. When, in October, 1705, the British, under 
Thomas Stirling, afterward general and knight, came to the Illinois 
country to take possession there according to the treaty of Paris, [763, 
February 10th, the non-Indian population, estimated at five thousand. 
included, perhaps, five hundred slaves. Whatever the number, it was 
soon reduced by emigration into the Spanish country across the 
Mississippi. Thus it was that St. Genevieve. Missouri's oldest town, 
became a place of relative importance. And it was from St. Genevieve, 
in later years, that there came part of the blot of slavery as we find 
it on early pages of Wisconsin's history. 



6. Decision of Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin of North Carolina, as quoted by 
Mrs. Stowe in "Dred." Tiki well, it would seem, had North Carolina learned the 
Lesson taught by the slave code of 1741. under which, according to report of cases 
in a late number of the "Green Bag" two negroes were burned to death lor murder. 
This shameless code of North Carolina also had its burlesque on religion: "Negro 
slaves were not allowed to raise horses, cattle or hogs"; ami if any stock of this 
kind was found in their possession six months after the passage of the act. such 
animals "were to he seized by the sheriff of the county, and sold by tin- church 
wardens of the parish. The profits arising from such sales went, one-half to the 
parish, the other half to the informer." I quote from Williams's "History of the 
Negro Race in America," Vol. I., page 304. See also appendix. 

7. "By some their employment [that of negro slaves] was viewed with alarm 
because it was thought the blacks would soon outnumber the whites, and might 
some day rise and overpower them; hut we find only the feeblest protest entered 
against the moral wrong of slavery in any record of the time."— 1 "rake's "Making d 
the Great West." p. 127. 

This statement does apply to the British colonies, at least to those of the 
North. For at .a very early time the Quakers bore testimony against shivery, and 
in 1700 the Puritan jurist. Samuel Sewell advocated the rights of negroes in his 
"Sidling of Joseph," and expressed his opinion 'hat there would "he no progress in 
gospelling" until slavery was abolished. 



NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 7 

French emigration from the Illinois country continued until Kas- 
kaskia, which once contained a population stated vaguely as being 
two or three thousand, and which had been made in 1721 the seat of 
a Jesuit college, became reduced to a hamlet of forty-five families. 
To these trans-Mississippi emigrants it was no doubt a grief and 
humiliation that their mother country had ceded her possessions on 

vest bank of the great river to Spain. But of the alternatives, 
they preferred the rule of his Catholic majesty to the sovereignty of 

I Britain. Fortunately for Illinois, unfortunately for Missouri, 
they took with them their slaves. For this migration, in its later 
years, the Ordinance of 1787 was, no doubt, partly responsible. But 
the beginning of it was not due to any interference of the British 
with the system of negro slavery. Nor did the conquest by George 
Rogers Clark of this mesopotamia of the Ohio and the Mississippi 
make, in this respect, any difference. Indeed, there is no worse record 
in American history than one that slavery then made not only pos- 
sible but actual, and the man from whose note-book we have the 
story is no other than the grandun< ary Todd 8 , the \ 1 

who became the wife of Abraham Lincoln. By appointment (dated 
at Williamsburg, 1778, December 12th) of Governor Patrick Henry 
of Virginia, John : 
Illinois." In his note-book is to be found the subjoined order: 

"Illinois, to-wit: To Richard Win-ion, Esq., Sheriff in chief of 
the District of Kaskaskia: 

"Negro Manuel, a Slave in your custody, is condemned by the 
Court of Kaskaskia, after having made honorable Fine at the Door 
oi the Church to be chained to a post at the Water Side and there 
to be burnt alive and his ashes scattered, as appears to me by the 
Record. This sentence you are hereby required to put into execution 
on tuesday next at 9 o'clock in the morning, and this shall be your 
warrant. Given under my hand and seal at Kaskaskia, the 13th day 
of June, in the third year of the commonwealth." 

An unknown pen has drawn black lines in Colonel Todd's note- 
book across the record as found above. From this circumstance 
some have been inclined to believe, perhaps because they wished to 
believe, that the sentence was never actually carried out. But in the 
opinion of Edward G. Mason, Esq., of Chicago, who has carefully 
studied this subject, "it is probable that the sentence was actually 
executed." 

"To make honorable Fine at the Door of the Church" is a 
puzzling expression to most of us. Under date of 1894, February 12th, 
Bishop S. J. Messmer, of Green Bay, wrote me: "I have asked 



S. Child of Robert S., he of Levi, In-other of John. 



8 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 

different gentlemen about it. They all agree that it is only a bad 
literal translation of the French 'faire une amende honorable,' which 
means to make proper amends for an injustice or wrong. As to the 
custom mentioned in your reference, you will get an idea of it by 
referring to Webster's Dictionary under the word amende." From 
a quotation in the Century Dictionary we learn that it was "a most 
ignominious punishment inflicted upon an extrcam offender, who 
must go through the streets barefoot and bareheaded (with a burning 
link in his hand) unto the seat of justice, or some such public place, 
and there confess his offence, and ask forgiveness of the party he 
hath wronged." 

Bishop Messmer adds: "Why Webster should call it an 'in- 
famous' punishment, I can not understand, except it be in the same 
sense as the legal phrase poena infamis, a punishment for a crime 
which renders the culprit legally infamous, i. e., deprives him of his 
civil rights." 

However, the punishment, as described above and by Webster, 
would seem to be infamous enough. And thus, very possibly, it 
was that the poor victim at Kaskaskia paid part of the penalty 
of his imaginary offense little more than a hundred years ago. 

"The third year of the commonwealth' - was. of course, the one 
ending July 4th, 1779. On June 15th of that year another order was 
given by Todd in regard to the execution of a sentence of death for 
alleged witchcraft, this time in the case of "Moreau, a slave condemned 
to execution," doubtless for the same offense: voudooism, or witch- 
craft. To this unhappy victim was given the more merciful death of 
hanging. Is he not the last, in any Christian nation of the world, 
legally to suffer death for his imagined offense? 

What makes this matter of special interest to us who dwell in 
Wisconsin is the fact that what was then law in the Illinois country 
was law here also. For all the region that subsequently became the 
old Northwest Territory was annexed, 1774, by "14 Geo. III., cap 
83" to the province of Quebec. By this enactment there was stifled 
the feeling, if such existed, that might have led Canada to join the 
colonies then about to revolt. For it restored to the clergy of the 
dominant church "the Dues and Rights," as related to members of 
their own communion, that they enjoyed when under the sovereignty 
of the Bourbons. "Out of the rest of said accustomed Dues and 
Rights" provision might be made for the "Encouragement of the 
Protestant Religion, and for the .Maintenance and Support of a Prot- 
estant Clergy," that is, of course, the church of England and clergy 
belonging to it, with possibly a bone or two thrown, if expedient, 
to trans-Atlantic ministers of the church of Scotland. 



NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 9 

The clergy of at least two influential sects being thus appeased, 
claimants of land under French grants, and of seigneurial (and per- 
haps other) titles and privileges must also be placated. For among 
them, as well as among the clergy, there had been uneasiness ever 
since their country had passed under British sovereignty. The king's 
proclamation, issued in the time of victory, and bearing date of 1763, 
October 7th, made no special provision for them any more than for 
the clergy. Now it was enacted "that all his Majesty's Canadian 
Subjects within the Province of Quebec, the religious Orders and 
Communities only excepted, may also hold and enjoy their Property 
and Possessions, together with all Customs and Usages relative there- 
to, and all other their Civil Rights, in as large, ample, and beneficial 
Manner, as if the said Proclamation * had not been made, and 

as may consist with their Allegiance to his Majesty, and subjection 
to the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain; and that in all Matters 
of Controversy, relative to Property and Civil Rights, Resort shall 
be had to the Laws of Canada, as the Rule for the Decision of the 
same." 

Among these "possessions" were, as we have seen, negro slaves. 
We find evidence that there had been one of these at Green Bay years 
before this country had ceased to be part of New France. Whenever 
it was that De Veile [Neyon De Villiers?], the French commandant 
at La Baye, murdered in his drunkenness and rage three Sauk chiefs.' 
he had with him a negro servant, presumably a slave. This must 
have been before 1746. Upon the surrender of Canada to the British, 
Marquis de Vaudreuil, the French governor, wrote to Charles de 
Langlade, of La Baye, 1760, September 9th, that by the articles of 
capitulation the people of the Northwestern settlements "may keep 
their negro and Pawnee slaves," except, adds Dr. Draper, from whom 
I copy this note, "such slaves as they may have captured from the 
British." It does not need this last reference to remind us that negro 
slavery was tolerated and encouraged in the colonies of Britain as well 
as in those of France. 

We are now prepared to continue our study of the legal and so- 
cial condition of this Ohio-Mississippi-and-Great-Lake region after 
its conquest by George Rogers Clark. As to population, it was In- 
dian, half-breed, French and negro. It was a conquered portion of 



9. "The Western Indians were slaveholders. They followed the ancient and hon- 
orable custom of selling captives taken in war into slavery, often as the alter- 
native of putting them to death; and among their best customers, from the early 
days of French colonization, were the white men, who often bought, it must be 
added, as acts of humanity. So many of these red slaves belonged to a single tribe 
that Pawnee, or "Pani" as the French wrote it, came to be the common word for 
slave irrespective of race, thus repeating the history of the word "Slav" itself." — 
Hinsdale's "The Old Northwest," p. 34s. 



10 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 

the province of Quebec. The conquest had been made by soldiers, 
and under the authority, of Virginia. The Revolutionary war was not 
at an end. Prudence demanded of the conquerors that they make 
as few changes as possible. They had reason, moreover, to be grate- 
ful, for, in some cases, they found a people ready for voluntary transfer 
of allegiance from his Britannic majesty to the nascent republic of the 
United States. "The Kaskaskians," says Moses M. Strong, "assisted 
in securing the submission of their neighbors at Kahokia." M. 
Gibault, priest at Kaskaskia, voluntarily undertook the task of per- 
suading the inhabitants of Vincennes to take the oath of allegiance 
to Virginia. In this he was successful. To permit to such a people 
as large a measure as possible of local self-government was certainly 
policy. 

But now the question arises. Under what authority did the Kas- 
kaskia court suppose itself to be acting when it sentenced the "Xegro 
Manuel" to be burned to death? Whatever we may think of the 
Quebec act, — from which I have quoted by its number and by the 
year of the reign in which it was passed; an act which our Revolu- 
tionary forefathers disliked so much that it is specifically referred to 
in the Declaration of Independence as one of the causes justifying 
separation from the mother country. — whatever, I say, we may think 
of said act, it did not revive or restore French criminal law. On the 
contrary, it expressly provided that "the Criminal Law of England * 
* * shall continue to be administered and to be observed as Law 
in the Province of Quebec * * to the Exclusion of every other 
Rule of Criminal Law." And though statutes against witchcraft as 
such, and not as a mere means of fraud or of imposition upon the 
ignorant, continued in force in Ireland until 1821. yet the last of such 
laws had been repealed in England in 1736. Moreover, the law in 
France against witchcraft, though it kept its place in legal works 
until the middle of the eighteenth century, must, by that time, or 
before it, have been practically annulled; that is. before the enforced 
separation of Louisiana and Canada from the mother country. Yet 
it is probable that under the old law against sorcery, then inoperative 
in France itself, there was had the legal conviction of the slaves 
Manuel and Moreau. Otherwise the law must have been purely local; 
one framed, perhaps, for the occasion. Then the question arises, 
What legislative body was there competent to make such an enact- 
ment? But, to an alarmed community, fear sometimes takes the place 
of law. Yet if this was madness there was method in it. 

Whatever we may think of Todd's responsibility in connection 
with this matter, it would be unjust to him not to remember that lie 
was an emancipationist, as is shown by a bill that he introduced into 
the \ irginia legislature. This native of Pennsylvania allied himself, 



NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 11 

it would seem, in his adopted state, not with that class of men who 
would have thought it no particular concern of theirs if Frenchmen 
of Kaskaskia wanted to burn or hang a few of their niggers, but 
with the opponents of slavery; men like Washington, George Mason 
and Edward Coles. This last is a name to which, in connection with 
our subject, we should give especial honor. For he it was who, 
having made Illinois his home, led to victory the men who preserved 
and made effective there the prohibition of slavery instituted by the 
great Ordinance of 1787. With sorrow and shame, in these better 
days, we learn that Governor Coles, for this great good he wrought 
for Illinois, was fairly driven from the state. Two Virginias there 
were in I 3, each of which had, in this vast interior, a potent 

influence. One we honor as the mother "of Presidents, the other 
was willing to become, and did become, the mother of slaves. 

While this Wisconsin region was in that chaotic state when by 
treaty it was in possession of the Americans, by trade in that of the 
British, and by actual occupancy in that of French Canadians and 
Indians, there was at least one case of negro slavery at Green Bay. 
Augustus Grignon thus tells the story: 

"It has already been related that Captain De Veile, who was 
early killed by the Sauks at Green Bay. had a negro servant who, 
I presume, was a slave. I know of but one other African slave at 
Green Bay. and lie was a mere lad, not over half a dozen years of age, 
when purchased by Baptiste Brunet of one Masshasho, a St. Louis 
Indian trader, giving one hundred dollars for him. The boy was 
probably at times very provoking, but Mr. Brunet was inexcusably 
severe in punishing him; he had a staple overhead in his house, to 
which he would tie the boy's hands and then whip him without mercy. 
Thus things went on for about eight years, till about 1807, when Mr. 
Campbell. 1 " who had been a trader among the Sioux, was appointed 
the first American Indian agent at Prairie du Chien, and who in some 
way heard of Brunet's cruelty, came and took the negro away. What 
was further done with him I do not know." 

But far more important, even to our narrative anent Wisconsin, 
"than the holding, during this period, of a single slave at Green Bay, 
was the passage of the famous Ordinance of 1787. Back of this 
great measure was a great movement and a great man. The move- 
ment was the transplanting of a part of Massachusetts — for it is men 
that constitute a state — to what was soon to be Ohio. The man was 
Manasseh Cutler, nomen venerabile et clarum. Few names in history 
are as great as this, and none more spotless. It is the mark of a 



10. Probably tbis was Colin Campbell who did service as interpreter, in 1820, 
tor Agent Taliaferro at Fort Snelling. See "Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota." 



12 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 

comprehensive mind to possess varied abilities; Manasseh Cutler was 
man of business, lawyer, clergyman and physician. In this last capac- 
ity and as chaplain he served in the Revolutionary army. Akin 10 
the spirit that made him a soldier was the impulse that sent him. 
in 1784, to the White mountains where, as one of the first party oi 
non-Indian explorers, he ascended Mount Washington. He was 
mathematician enough to make astronomical calculations that, at the 
time they were made, had not been surpassed in America. In botany, 
he was the second writer that this country produced, and the G 
to attempt a scientific description of the plants of New England. 
He was the author of "Meteorological Observations, 1781, '82, '83." 
In reasonable probability he was one of the first to appreciate the 
possibilities of the steamboat, even in its crude form as invented 
by John Fitch twenty-one years before Fulton's Clermont made her 
famous first trip up the Hudson. McMaster tells of Dr. Cutler's part 
in the making of a true screw-propeller. That was at Marietta, the 
Plymouth of this newer New England that is the Old Northwest. 

This is the region whose adherence to the East and North made 
impossible the fulfilment of the plan so often suggested before 1861 of 
a Southern and Western confederacy. The affiliation of this section 
with the North was because both were anti-slavery, and this, in great 
part, was brought about by the Ordinance of 1787. With this pro- 
posed measure the last Congress of the Confederation — a different in- 
stitution from the Continental Congress — had been wrestling; and the 
proposal to forbid slavery — brought forward by Nathan Dane at the 
second reading of the Ordinance — seemed doomed to defeat. Then 
it was that Manasseh Cutler did a service that entitles him to rank 
with the greatest of statemen. As agent of the Ohio company and so 
a possible purchaser of land that Congress desired to sell, and as 
one of the founders of a proposed settlement that the whole country 
needed for its enlargement, unity- and defense, he was in a position to 
insist, and did insist, on the proposed amendment. Doubtless the 
whole Ordinance passed under his attentive eyes, and almost cer- 
tainly received from his pen changes that contributed to the 
high rank it has taken among the state papers of the world. His, 
probably, is the noble declaration: "Religion, morality and knowl- 
edge being necessary to the good government and happiness of man- 
kind, schools and the means of education shall forever be en- 
couraged." Without a gift of land for the support of a university in 
Ohio he would not buy land there for the colony that he and his 
associates proposed to found. He drew up a plan for the establish- 
ment and government of such a university, and thus became the father 
of an important part of the educational system of these northern 
states of the Interior. 



NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 13 

"Copied in succeeding acts for the organization of Territories," 
says Alexander Johnson, "and still controlling the spirit of such acts, 
the Ordinance of 1787 is the foundation of almost everything which 
makes the American system peculiar." This Ordinance abolished 
primogeniture and entail. It secured equal rights of inheritance. It 
made possible the Emancipation Proclamation and, in 1865, what is 
substantially its sixth article appears as the thirteenth amendment to 
the constitution of the United States. In it was in embryo the con- 
stitution of Wisconsin, and the anti-slavery clause thereof is a trans- 
cript of that found in the ordinance. Thus it is that Manasseh Cutler 
stands eminently and honorably related to the history of Wisconsin, 
and especially to the subject of this narrative. 

We must not make the mistake of thinking that the choice of 
position for this New England and anti-slavery colony was a matter 
of small importance. It was not on Lake Erie, but on the Ohio, 
where it confronted slave soil and made it certain that one of the 
banks of the "beautiful river" should be free. I do not know that 
Dr. Cutler had anything to do with the choice of position, though it 
is probable that he had. He must have known of the danger, then felt 
by Washington and others to be real and great, that the existing 
trans-Alleghany settlements might attempt to found a republic of their 
own. There were existent the conditions that, at a later time, made 
Burr's movement so dangerous. 11 Marietta became a strong link in 
the chain that bound the new states of the Interior to those of the 
Atlantic Coast. It may be that this region of the Ohio and the Great 
Lakes has been twice saved to our national Union, and it has cer- 
tainly helped to make that Union worth saving. 

So great was Dr. Cutler's part in founding the new commonwealth 
of Ohio that "The Nation" has said: "Manasseh Cutler is entitled to 
rank with Bradford, Winthrop, Penn, Calvert and Oglethorpe as the 
founder of a state." 12 

And yet this Calvinistic clergyman of the eighteenth century was 
free from the common clerical fault of trying to extend special privi- 
leges to churches of his own communion. Coming from a state 
where Congregationalism was the "standing order," that is. a quasi 
establishment, he preached in the new colony in favor of the separa- 
tion of church and state. He recognized frankly the defects as well 



11. It brings this movement of Burr's somewhat closet to the thought of dwell- 
ers in Wisconsin to know that, for being suspected of complicity in it, Henry Dodge, 
our first Territorial governor, was indicted for treason. Of this offense he was 
innocent. But he would probably have been perfectly willing to acknowledge, out 
of court, a readiness to join a filibustering party against the Spaniards who then 
ruled Mexico. 

12. Yet it is noteworthy that, as member of the House of Representatives, he 
voted against the admission of the state that he helped to found. 



14 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 

as the excellencies of the older Puritanism. And there are those 
will think it not the least of his claims to honorable remembrance 
that though he served in the Massachusetts legislature, was twici 
elected to Congress, and was offered a judge's commission by Wash- 
ington, yet he continued faithful to the duty of Christian bishop, 
serving in that capacity, for fifty-two years, the humble parish which 
first called him to that high office. 

To preserve intact the work of Manasseh Cutler, as wrought into 
the great Ordinance, there was here in Wisconsin no struggle, as in 
Ohio. Indiana and Illinois. And yet the element that strove there 
for the legal right to bring upon those great states the shame and 
hurt of negro slavery was represented here also. It can not be made 
too clear that Wisconsin was settled by two currents of emigration, 
different in origin, in route hither and in place of settlement. The 
later, and, ultimately, the larger of the two has small but most honor- 
able place in our narrative. 13 It came from New England, New York 
and northern Ohio, and, so far as I know, brought with it not one 
slave. Thus were formed the early American settlements in eastern 
Wisconsin, or, as it was at first, Michigan-west-of-the-lake. 

In the southwestern part of what has become Wisconsin, matters 
were different. Here is our part of the lead region, united by the 
Mississippi to Missouri and the South. From these sources, and by 
this route, came the first of the two great currents of Wisconsin-ward 
migration. With it were brought some slaves. There are those who 
will remember that, at an early day, perhaps 1822, James Johnson 
brought to the lead region from Kentucky a number of negro slaves. 
We do not know that any of these ever set foot upon any part of 
what is now Wisconsin, though the places where they worked are 
almost on our southern boundary line. We may here allude to the 
statement of Governor John Reynolds — in partial accord with one on 
the same subject already quoted from Winsor — that "the first im- 
portation of slaves was one of five hundred made from San Domingo 
in 1726, by Philip Renault to work the mines." If those of the 
"Mine river" 14 were in Renault's plan, I know of not the least 



IS. The writer ventures to put here the hist paragraph of his first paper <m 
the subject of this monograph (Proceedings of the Wisconsin State Historical 
Society, 1892): 

"The second of the two great streams of immigration hither came by way of the 
two Great Lakes, and for the most part from New England and New York. It was 
distinctly anti-slavery in sentiment. Among the men who formed part of tins move- 
ment were many who in later years resisted manfully the abominable fugitive slave 
law. But against human slavery itself, and its more immediate effects, the aboli- 
tionists who came hither from the South, made, here and elsewhere, an earlier 
tight, and against greater odds won victory." 

14. The name given by Le Sueur to what we call the Fevre or Galena river. 
To this stream he came, apparently on the 25th of August, 1700. According to 



NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 15 

evidence that any of the five hundred negroes were ever brought 
thither. And certainly, as we have already learned, this importation 
of slaves was not the first unless Reynolds has reference merely to 
the Illinois country. So we dismiss this matter, close the page of a 
hundred and seventy years gone by, and seek information from those 
whom the lathers of Wisconsin knew as contemporaries. Some of 
them yet abide with us. 

Few in number and venerable in years are the men whose living 
lips can tell from personal knowledge any part of the story of negro 
slavery in Wisconsin. How many there are I do not know; with 
three I have conversed on this subject: John Meyers, of Platteville; 
ex-Judge Joseph Trotter Mills, for many years a resident of Lan- 
caster, now ol Manitowoc; and George Wallace Jones, of Dubuque. 
Iowa. With two others now numbered with the dead I have had 
personal communication: with Jeremiah Porter, D. D., of Beloit, by 
word of mouth; and by correspondence with Rev. Isaac Erving 
Heaton, whose firsl Western home was at (old) Belmont, in the Ter- 
ritory of Wisconsin. It was Mr. Heaton, if I remember rightly, 
whose statements led me to make investigation until I found that 
slaves had been held within sight of the little red farm-house that 
was my boyhood home. He who once owned them I have already 
named: George Wallace Jones. The place where they were held 
was Sinsinawa Mound, whose crest of Niagara limestone, like the 
summits of the 1 Matte .Mounds and the Blue, testify to the unmeasured 
age of "this old, old land that men call new," and tell on pages of 
rock the story of the denudation of the region around them. 

These "mounds" — for one who was brought up in sight of them 
can not be expected to violate fixed local usage out of deference to 
the Century dictionary or Webster's International — naturally attracted 
the attention of the first settlers, as they had that of the explorers 
of this region. Sinsinawa Mound is part of the preemption claim 
that was the first to be proved in the .Mineral Point land-office when 
it was opened, 1836, August 1st. If it be asked, How could this entry 
of ore-bearing land have been made at that time? there are three 
possible answers. General Jones thinks that the act reserving such 
lands had not been passed when he made his claim. Or the land may 
have been regarded as agricultural, not ore-bearing. The third pos- 
sibility is that the registrar of the land-office may have been quite 
willing to make friends of the settlers by neglecting to make proper 
inquiries in the interest of the government. 



Benard de La Harpe (French's Historical Collections of Louisiana, part III., p. 23) 
he reported that on the right of this stream, "seven leagues inland, is a lead 
mine." That distance would have brought him into Wisconsin. But probably the 
mine that he heard of was nearer the Mississippi. "On the 1st of September, he 
passed the Onisconsin river, which is about half a league wide at its mouth.'' 



16 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 

A severe illness in the spring of 1827 brought General 1 
under advice of Doctor, afterwards United States Senator. Lewis 
Fields Linn from St. Genevieve, Missouri, to what is now Wisconsin. 
Here from 1828 until 1844 he made his legal residence at Sinsinawa 
Movnd. Thither it was, as I have said, that he brought slaves, "a 
dozen or fifteen," according to his own recollection. Ten is the 
number of his "family" as reported in the Territorial census of i8j6. 
Others reported slaves that year; he did not. Yet some of the ten, 
it is almost certain, were negroes who had not then asserted their 
legal right to freedom. This was done by one of Jones's quasi slaves 
in 1838. Some account of the case I have had from the old gen- 
tleman himself, Judge Mills remembers it and. in the "History of 
Grant County," the story is told by Free Williams. 1 -" foreman of the 
jury, who was unfortunate enough to find himself compelled to serve 
with eleven ignorant and obstinate associates. General Jones gave 
me the names of the attorneys: Thomas P. Burnett and James Wilson 
for the negro; Frank Dunn and Charles Hempstead for himself. My 
notes, imperfectly made, lead me to think that with Dunn and 
Hempstead — the latter of Galena — was associated a third lawyer, W. 
H. Banks of Mineral Point. According to General Jones's recollec- 
tion, the judge charged the jury that the negro's legal status was 
determined by the statute of the state whence he had been brought, 
and that, consequently, he could not be party to a suit. But such a 
ruling does not seem to be consistent with the fact that the case 
was given to a jury. Whatever the charge the foreman says nothing 
about it. I transcribe part of his narrative: 

"Harvey Pepper was sheriff; Judge Dunn was on the bench; 
I was foreman of the jury; old yellow-black Paul was plaintiff; and 
Colonel Jones, who went to Congress and perched himself on top of 
Sinsinawa Mound — he was the defendant. Jones owned Paul down 
in Kentucky [Missouri], and when Paul got on the M01 
reled with his master and became obstreperous, and Jones drove him 
off. He then went through the country fiddling at what they called 
'stag dances.' Females then were very scarce * * * so the boys 
would dance alone on the sod floor, and Paul would fiddle for his 
whisky, and when he ran too far out of knees and elbows he would 
go back to Jones and saw wood, and Jones would supply him with 
old clothes. After some years Paul concluded, as courts and lawyers 



15. "Who does not know Free?" asks J. W Seaton in bis story of "M. de 
Tantabaratz and the Deserted Village" (History of Grant County). Mr. 
writing in or about 1880, calls Williams "a living archaeological monument of the 
mines standing in Ellenboro." Said "monument" needs no other, and probably de- 
serves no better, inscription than one that could be easily composed out of his own 
narrative, as given above. 



NEGRO SLA 1 'E R Y IN WISCONSIN. 1 7 

had made their appearance, he would sue his old master for wages, 
and have a final settlement in this free country. We heard the evi- 
dence. The yellow darkey hadn't a bit of proof in support of his 
claim, but eleven of the jurors went in steep for the plaintiff, con- 
tending if Paul recovered wages it would make him a free man. I 
asserted that he was free any way, wages or no wages ; that we were 
bound to go according to law. 

"We should have hung there until this time, probably, but for a 
couple of huge, gray, timber wolves, that old 'Wolf-catcher Graham' 
had brought into the town plat, securely caged in his wagon. Every- 
body then attended court, and everybody brought his dogs. The old 
wolf-catcher set up a loud cry, saying he would let out a wolf against 
all the dogs in creation, if the people who desired the sport woul 
him $20 each for his wolves, and allow him the scalps. The money 
was raised quicker than you could count it. We would have almost 
paid the national debt to see a wolf-fight. The first wolf — and he was 
an old settler I tell you — was let loose in the yard, right under our 
window. We ran to it and climbed on each others' shoulders. Such 
snapping, barking, growling and bristling you never heard or saw. 
* * * The revolving mass turned round the corner where we 
couldn't see them, and then my eleven associates cried: 'For heaven's 
sake, Free, do agree, so we can get out of this cursed hole and see 
the fun.' 'Boys,' said I, T have been raised with wolves. I won't 
budge an inch for any arguments that dogs and wolves can furnish.' 
'Well, Free, just say that Jones shall pay a dollar, and we will come 
down to that.' 'Never a cent.' We heard the uproarious laughter and 
shouts of the outside world. It was too much for the boys. The 
friends of poor yellow Paul yielded, and cried out 'We agree; write 
out the verdict, Free.' 'I wrote out the verdict for the defendant; but 
lo! we were in a worse condition than ever. The judge, sheriff and 
all hands had gone to the entertainment. No time was to be lost. 
A chair was picked up, a window smashed, and as Judge Dunn heard 
the glass come jingling to the ground he screamed: "Pepper! Pepper! 
let those men out; they will tear down the court house!' These words 
sounded like the trump of jubilee. We handed our verdict to the 
sheriff, and rushed down stairs like a flock of frightened sheep when 
the dogs are after them." 

Somewhat more, probably, than a mere question of wages under- 
lay this case. It was very likely a movement on some one's nart to 
secure practical recognition of the legal fact that in Wisconsin there 
was no such relation as that of master and slave. The status as free- 
men of his former slaves was fully recognized by General Jones about 
1842, according to his own recollection. What practically took place 
then was very likely but the breaking-up of an establishment that, 



18 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 

for the most part, had been held together by the bonds of kindliness 
and mutual good will. 

From Sinsinawa mound, which is only a mile from Illinois and 
on the dividing line between the towns of Hazel Green and James 
town, we go northward to Platteville and vicinity. And now we will 
let Father Heaton tell his story: 1 " 

"My birth was in Franklin, Massachusetts, October 6, 1808. The 
Rev Dr. Emmons was my early pastor. We came to Wisconsin in 
May, 1837. Rev. Mr. Kent at Galena advised me to engage partly in 
teaching as that would be appreciated. 

"We spent the first summer at Elk Grove, six miles south from 
(old) Belmont. Two ladies, residing three or four miles distant, in 
nearly opposite directions, were members of the Methodist church 
in Platteville. A Mr. Mitchell from Virginia was their minis'.er. He 
was a man of popular address, but he brought two slave girls with 
him, and kept them some years, in defiance of the law. When this 
appeared unsafe, he sent them back to slavery." 

Mr- Heaton has here made a slight mistake. James Mitch 11, 
who brought the slaves, did not come to Wisconsin until 184.2. Nine 
years before, his brother John T. had been appointed by the Rock 
river conference of the Methodist Episcopal church to service at 
Galena and vicinity. While thus engaged he organized the Methodist 
church of Platteville. To this place came in [836 his father, Rev. 
Samuel Mitchell, a local preacher. He was the Mitchell, almost cer- 
tainly, who was preaching at Platteville in 1837— though probably 
merely as helper to the '•circuit rider," Rev. John Crummer, then sta- 
tioned there. Samuel Mitchell has, in connection with, slavery, as in 
other matters, a most honorable history, which came to me as nar- 
rated by himself to the late Rev. Philo Sage Bennett of Appleton: 

He was sitting one day under a tree, watching his negroes at 
work, when he happened to think of the Golden Rule. It did not 
need any difficult reasoning to reach the conclusion that he would not 
like to be working without wages for a man who himself was doing 
nothing. Then followed the question, put to himself: But why be so 
particular about one part of the law of God without obeying in all 
things? Thus he became, in the evangelical sense of the term, a 
Christian. "He then emancipated his slaves, and after a while moved 
to Southern Illinois, taking with him those who were disposed to go. 
and provided for them homes as far as he could. Thus he showed 
the thoroughness of his conversion." 17 

In a second letter 1 s Father Heaton thus continued his narrative: 



10. In .-i letter dated a1 Fremont, Nebraska, 1890, March 5th. 
IT. Bennett's "History of Methodism in Wisconsin," page •"-. 
18. Dated 1890, March 20th. 



NEGRO SLAVERY IN 1VISC0XSIW 19 

"The report of slaves held in Wisconsin is sorrowfully more ex- 
tensive. I would almost say 'Tell it not in Gath.' As nearly fifty 
years have passed since I left the Lead Mining Region, I can trust 
only to memory. More than twenty years ago, while we were ab- 
sent from home, our house was burned, with all my books and papers. 

"I think Mr. Mitchell's first name was James. His sister was the 
wife of Mr. Rountree in Platteville. Each of these men brought two 
slaves with him. I have seen them all. In June, 1838. a census wa- 
taken preliminary to the separation of Wisconsin and Iowa. One of 
these men, I think Mr. Rountree, reported his slaves as slaves. I 
recollect seeing the returns of the census as so printed. As no law 
authorized holding slaves in Wisconsin, it is possible that no such 
official record can now be found. The essential facts which I men- 
tion may doubtless be verified by inquiries at Platteville and vicinity. 

"1 have these evidences that Mr. Mitchell sent his s'aves back: 

"First. This was confidently reported. But I think it occurred 
after I left that region, probably about 1842. 

"Second. I presume it was never disputed. Certainly I never 
heard of any such pretense. 

"Third. The slave dealer to whom Mitchell consigned these 
slave girls at Si. Louis did not forward them to their destination. 
An anti-slavery paper was published I think at Prairieville (Wauke- 
sha). Wisconsin. I can not now recall the name of either the paper or 
the editor. You can ascertain these. The legal owner of these slaves 
(I think in Virginia) inserted in a paper (printed I think at St. Louis) 
an article at some length, explaining the case, and complaining of 
the fraud. The editor of this anti-slavery paper found this article 
among his exchanges, and inserted it in his own paper. I read it 
there. Trusting to memory it included all the essential facts of the 

"Two other men near Elk Grove kept slaves. One kept a man 
and woman, I think also he kept a third, but my recollection of lite 
third is indistinct. The other man kept one slave girl. Soon after 
I left that region it was reported, and I doubt not correctly, that about 
1842 they made a visit to Missouri, taking this slave girl with them. 
They sold her there. 

"Still another man residing some twelve miles westerly, or north- 
westerly from Belmont kept two or three slaves. I have seen them 
all: nine, or ten, or perhaps eleven in number. Both these men at 
Elk Grove sent their children to my school. - ' 

There can be no doubt whatever as to the sending back of the 
Mitchell slave girls into legal bondage. In regard to the other case 
of like sort mentioned by Father Heaton we are not likely to know 
anything more than the statement he has given us. Judging from all 



20 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 

that I have heard of his character, we could scarcely find a more con- 
scientious and careful witness. Moreover, I found that Mr. John 
Meyers of Platteville had, when I saw him, vivid remembrano oi 
some of the same facts. He remembered the slave woman — Aunt 
Rachel he called her — at Major Rountree's. His father, while visiting 
or calling at Mitchell's saw one of the slave girls there. Mr. Meyers 
spoke of the storm of indignation roused by Mitchell's act. and of 
efforts to recover the girls and bring them again to free soil. ITe 
mentioned Robert Chapman as especially active in putting forth effort 
to get the girls back. Certain matters I would mention doubtfully 
owing to imperfection in my notes. These concern what seems to be 
a case of kidnapping. James Moore was sent in pursuit of the girls. 
He was accompanied, apparently, by a negro blacksmith named Buck- 
ner. Once on slave soil. Moore took advantage of his opportunity 
and sold his colored but free companion. These statements I put 
forth not as affirmations. But I believe Meyers to be a truthful and 
competent witness. Blind but not gloomy, a member for more than 
fifty years of the Congregational church of Platteville :med, 

when I saw him, to be but patiently waiting the great change that is 
appointed unto all. He had the contract, so he told me, for putting 
up the original academy building at Platteville, a structure i sed atsa 
as a house of worship by the church of which he was a member. 

Y\ lien Mr. Mitchell's offense was committed he was 
ber of the Rock River conference of his branch, or order, of the 
Christian church. As is well known, there was sharp contention for 
many years in the Methodist Episcopal church on questions that g>-e\v 
out of slavery. Many a Paul withstood to the face an erring Peter, 
"because he was to be blamed." And the great moral victory won 
by anti-slavery men within the ecclesiastical domain of Methodism 
preceded the triumph for which our Union soldiers fought on fields 
of battle. By whose accusation Mr. Mitchell was brought to trial, I 
do not know. Moreover, "the testimony in the case does not appear 
in the record," writes Rev. J. W. Richards, of De Kalb, Illinois, 
the present secretary of Rock River conference. 19 By his favor, and 
the kindness of Rev. T. W. North of Menasha, I am able to present 
the subjoined transcript of the outline of the trial and the findings of 
the conference: 

"Charges preferred against Rev. James Mitchell, a member of 
Rock River Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
at the session held at Canton, Illinois, August 2— n, 1848. 

"CHARGE: — Unchristian, Immoral, and Inhuman Conduct. 

"First Specification: — In bringing two colored girls from a slave 



19. Under date of 1S06, April 25th. 



NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 21 

state into tree territory in the character of slaves, and retaining them 
as such while in such free territory. 

"Second Specification: — In sending two colored girls, who were 
free, from free territory back into a slave state, and receiving and 
using the fruits of their labor. 

•"Third Specification: — In sending from free territory two colored 
girls who were free into a slave state as slaves, and leaving them there 
to be treated as such. 

"Fourth Specification: — In sending from free territory two col- 
ored girls into a slave state and leaving them there to be treated as 
slaves, and neglecting to care for them, and permitting them to be 
reduced again to slavery, or treated as slaves. 

"Fifth Specification: — In causing two colored girls to be re- 
duced to a state of involuntary servitude. 

"Sixth Specification:— In causing two colored girls to be sent 
from where they were free into a state of involuntary servitude, and 
receiving the fruits of their labor, and in declaring, in the spring of 
1846, that he would do the same thing under the same circumstances 
again." 

"The record then goes on to say that testimony taken before a 
committee was read, and papers, marked G, H, K, L. M, N No. 1, 
N Xo. 2. B, C, &c. &c, showing quite voluminous testimony, but 
none of it given, were presented. 

"The reading of this testimony and the settling of law questions 
seem to have occupied the time of the Conference for about four 
days. 

"The record proceeds as follows: The pleadings were closed and, 
on motion, the Conference resolved to sit with closed doors while 
making up the decision. Resolved, That probationers be allowed to 
remain in the house. A motion to take the votes by yeas and nays 
was lost. 

"The first specification was read. Resolved, That the first speci- 
fication be divided, stopping with the first branch at the word slaves. 
First branch of the first specification sustained. Second branch, not 
sustained. 

"Second specification read. Resolved to divide the second speci- 
fication, the first branch stopping at the word states. The following 
was adopted: Resolved, That the first branch of the second specifi- 
cation is sustained so far as it applies to one of the girls. Vote, 
thirty-one to twenty-five. 

"Second branch of the second specification, not sustained. 

"Third specification. Resolved, That the third specification is 
sustained so far as it applies to one of the girls. On counting, the 
vote stood twenty-seven to twenty-five. 



22 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 

"Fourth specification. The same resolution was offered and lost 
by s vote of twenty-six to twenty-eight. Specification not sustained 

"Fifth specification. Same resolution lost. Not su t; 

"Sixth specification was divided into three branches none of 
which were sustained. Therefore the sixth specification is nol 
tained. 

"The following- question was then put to the chaii : When a mem- 
ber of Conference is charged with a crime and the specifications sus- 
tained under that charge do not sustain the charge, may the Confer- 
ence find the accused guilty of such other and less moral obliquity 
as may he proven by the specifications thus sustained? Answer in 
the affirmath e. 

On motion, the main charge, which i- lows, was divided. 

"CHARGE: Unchristian, immoral and inhuman conduct. 

"First branch. Unchristian conduct, was sustained. 

"Second branch, Immoral conduct, not sustained. 

"Third branch, Inhuman conduct, not sustained. 

"A motion to suspend James Mitchell for one year was offered 
ami h >st. 

"On motion, the vote by which James Mitchell was found guilty 
of unchristian conduct was reconsidered. The vote on the charge of 
unchristian conduct was then taken and the charge sustained, twenty- 
eight voting in the affirmative and twenty-four in the negative. Con- 
ference then resolved that Bro. Mitchell lie left without an 
ment for one year. Bro. Mitchell notified the Conference that ai a 
proper time he would communicate his wishes in the case, and that he 
intended taking an appeal to the General Conference. 

"Later on in the journal this entry appears: 

"Bro. .Mitchell made a statement in relation to his case, and the 
Conference reconsidered the resolution by which the penalty was fixed 
in his case. The original motion to leave without an appointment 
was withdrawn and, on motion, the character of Bro. Mitchell pa 

"Bro. Mitchell notified the Conference that for the present he 
would withdraw his notice of an intention to appeal." 

No doubt the victory of the anti-slavery men was more decided 
than would appear from the record. Brother Mitchell's usefulness in 
\\ Isconsin was at an end. Indeed he seems to have been transferred 
from the Territory in 1844, and never again did he have here a pas- 
toral appointment. Mr. Bennett's History takes final leave of him 
with the following comment: He "occupied a conspicuous position, 
and was evidently a man of much ability; but he was quite as distin- 
guished for promoting party strife as for his usefulness." 

The old Arab chiel who always asked when a case was brought 
before him. "Where is the woman?" would have been gratified at the 



NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 23 

answer in this instance. For. if Mr. Bennett was rightly informed, 
the slave girls were the property of Mrs. Mitchell and not of her 
husband. 

Xext in order, in our narrative, conies Mineral Point. To Flor- 
ence Elizabeth Baker, of the Historical Library, Madison, we owe 
the following narrative: 

Colonel (?) McKim 20 brought with him from Baltimore. Mary- 
land, two bouse servants, slaves, known as 'Aunt Dinah' and 'George 

ECim. They were on a farm south of Mineral Point, Wisconsin, in 
and had been there for two years before that, perhaps. Neither 
my father nor uncle can say that they were ever formally emancipated. 
They never heard of it if such is the case, but when Colonel McKim 
went to New York state to engage in business, a few years later, he 
left them both. Aunt Dinah went to live with Mrs. Phil Thomas, nee 
Fanny Brewer, a Southern girl, and stayed there for some time. Mrs. 
Thomas died about two years after her marriage, and her husband a 
few years later. Just when Aunt Dinah returned to the "McKim 
farm" no one here knows, hut the last trace of her seems to end at 
that time. Her son died not many years ago. somewhere near Mineral 
Point. He used to be fiddler for the dancing parties between 1848 
and 1855, and was. at various periods during those years, cook at the 
Franklin House. In .March. 1855, my lather came to .Madison, and 
two months later my uncle followed, so that it is a long t ; me since 
these farts have been either thought of or discussed. I might add 
that Colonel McKim was a bachelor, and that his farm wis sold to 
Mr. Ansley when he left. I think the title was the usual Southern 
'ci ilonel.' 

"1 have obtained the above facts from my father, J. H. D. Bal-er. 
his sister, Elizabeth Maker Fox, and her husband, C. J. Fox. all of 
whom live in Madison now [1893. July 26th]." 

Miss Baker adds: "1 might say that it is only by common report 
that these people were slaves, but the very fact that they were brought 
here at that early date seems to point in that direction. All three 
of m\ informants are sure that, for a time at least, these negroes were 
actually held as slaves." 

In regard to Dodgeville we have a story of emancipation rather 
than of slavery. It is thus told by Mrs. Sally Hopkins Maddin, widow 
of Henry Dodge Maddin, grandson of Governor Dodge: 

"Governor Henry Dodge came to this Territory in 1827 and 
brought a number of slaves with him. On reaching this state he in- 
formed them of their freedom, but they still remained with him and 
worked for him. He built cabins for them on his farm known as 



2n. In the first volume of "Wisconsin Reports" we find the name >>t" Richard Mo- 
Kim of Iowa county. Probably he is the ••Colonel" McKim of Mis- Baker's narrative. 



24 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 

the 'Governor's Grove,' between Mineral Point and Dodgeville, and 
provided for them while he lived; and they, many of them, were buried 
on the farm. 

"During the time he was United States senator he retained his 
residence on his farm, where his wife remained. During later life, his 
winters were spent with his son, Augustus Dodge of Burlington, 
Iowa, and his summers in Mineral Point', where he received weekly 
visits from his former slaves, and supplied their needs with money 
and provisions. Their descendants are widely scattered, some few in 
Mineral Point, but the majority in Illinois. He always paid his col- 
ored people's taxes, and, in short, exercised over them, during his 
entire life, the same care a good guardian gives his ward." 

Supplementary to the narrative is an extract- 1 from a letter by 
the late Morgan Lewis Martin to Augustus Caesar Dodge, [883, May 
25th. He has been writing of other members of the household, and 
adds: 

"Nor can I forget the appearance of the negro slaves, who clung 
to your father's family even after they were given freedom, as dutiful 
children dependent for protection and daily wants upon a parent.'' 

According to General Jones, a native, like Dodge, of Vine 
Indiana, and for many years his acquaintance and friend. Dodge, be- 
fore leaving Missouri, called together his negroes and promised free- 
dom after five years' service to such of them as would go with him 
to his proposed new home. It is worthy of honorable mention here 
that Henry Dodge, when in the United States senate, voted in favor 
of the Wilmot Proviso, while his son, a member from Iowa, of the 
same body, voted against it. 

We now come to the place where, doubtless, there were more in- 
stances of the holding of negroes in slavery than any where else in 
Wisconsin. This, however, is due to the fact that some of the army 
officers at Fort Crawford brought slaves thither and kept them there. 
By the census of 1836, there was reported one negro male slave in 
the family of Thomas Street, and one female in that of T. (J.?) U. 
Lockwood. Seventeen slaves are reported as being held in the fort. 

To a great extent, no doubt, the fort was in practice, both at this 
time and later, a law unto itself. The most tragic story, in connection 
with our subject, is one told 22 by John H. Fonda. "At a general elec- 
tion," he says, "held on the 22nd day of September, 1845 I was elected 
to the office of coroner and constable for Crawford county. In the 
first office the duties that devolved on me were neither few nor pleas- 



21. I make my transcript from the "Iowa Historical Record," October, 1889, v./]. 
V.. p. 3oC. Article: "Henry Dodge." by Rev, William Salter, pastor for fifty years 
and more of the Congregational church, Burlington, Iowa, 

22. Wisconsin Historical Collections, volume V.. page 277. 



NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 25 

ant. The country being thinly settled, detection was easily avoided, and 
the penalties of the law hard to enforce; so evil-disposed persons, not 
having the fear of certain punishment before them, perpetrated deeds 
of violence with perfect impunity. I was once notified that a dead 
body was lying in the water, opposite Pig's Eye slough, and immed- 
iately proceeded to the spot, and, on taking it out, I recognized it as 
the body of a negro woman belonging to a certain Captain then in 
Fort Crawford. The body was cruelly cut and bruised; but THE per- 
son not appearing to recognize it a verdict of 'Found Dead,' was ren- 
dered, and I had the corpse buried. Soon after it came to light that 
the woman was whipped to death, and thrown into the river during 
the night; but no investigation was made, and the affair blew over." 
Surely on this occasion, Mr. Fonda magnified neither his office nor its 
duties. 

Here we may call to our aid the reminiscences of ex-Judge Mills. 
This native of Bourbon count}', Kentucky, became an abolitionist be- 
fore he left his native state. There he was teacher in a Sunday school. 
Whatever may be said either in support or disparagement of the idea 
that the dogmatic basis of Christianity is to be found in a book rather 
than in an institution, it is certain that such a belief is likely to lead 
to attentive study of the book. Those who hold to such a c r eed will 
affirm, if consistent, that a book which contains a revelation from God 
should certainly be read by everybody, and everybody who can learn 
should be taught to read it. No exception can reasonably be made 
in the case of negroes, or even of slaves. To teach colored people, 
even though bondmen, to read the Bible was, therefore, one of the 
objects of said Sunday school. Naturally enough, this proceeding at- 
tracted the attention of slaveholders of the vicinity, and our poor little 
Sunday school was soon suppressed. Drawn by the name of Edward 
Beecher, young Mills came to Jacksonville, Illinois, to enter Illinois 
college. Therein, as a student, was Joseph, son of General J. M. 
Street, so often heard of in our early Wisconsin history, and thither 
the father — probably it was he— sent for some one who would come to 
Prairie du Chien as teacher. Mills responded to the call, and came 
thither about the middle of September, according to his recollection, 
1834. He came on the steamboat Warrior, which had been so effect- 
ively employed two years before in the disgraceful battle of the Bad 
Axe. A fellow passenger, taken on board somewhere above Quincy, 
Illinois, was the wronged chief Black Hawk. He had been brought 
back from his enforced tour in the East, and was starting on 
his annual hunt. "But the world as he knew it in his youth had 
vanished forever, and oh how sad and dejected was that face on^e 
aht with the eye of an eagle. 

"I was but a timid student," continues Judge Mills, "cast sudden- 



26 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 

ly among men who wore epaulettes upon their shoulders and silken 
sashes and sword belts around their waists. Here I found representa- 
tives of all nationalities herding together, savage and civilized; and a 
motley population, ring-streaked, speckled and spotted. \o hotels 
then. There was but one large house to go to, one erected by the 
government, which had several rooms in it. some of which were oc- 
cupied by the Indian agents and General Street and his family. The 
floors and passages [floors of the passages?] were occupied and cov- 
ered by natives, large and small, dogs and children. It was growing 
dark, and never had I overlooked such a scene before. By the p 
light of a lard-oil lamp I could discover full-blood and half-blood In- 
dian faces, tangled and platted hair, black as a raven's wing, all 
stretched upon the floors, and the mosquitoes, fleas and bedbugs in 
thousands would satisfy any census bureau; and these connoisseurs of 
human blood were enjoying a barbecue. As I watched, my whole 
being, flesh and blood was curdled into one mass of disgust and 
shame when I saw a shriveled faced dame catch one of these blood 
swilled vampires and thrust it into her nursling's mouth. 

"I remember the day and evening was unusually warm for the 
season of the year. The air, or what occupied its space, was close and 
stifling. In feeling my way along a labyrinth of passages, I suddenly 
opened a narrow door." Entering it, Air. Mills found a "friend of 
his youth, from the same famous old town, Paris. Kentucky." This 
was Thomas Pendleton Burnett, whose name we have already heard 
in the report of the case of John Paul Jones against his former mas- 
ter. Mr. Burnett gave his friend "an introduction to General Street 
and his family. We spent a day or two in examining the ruins of 
the old fort and the stockade. * * * The old town across the 
slough had no modern buildings in it except the trading emporium of 
Messrs, Roulette & Dousman. Wigwams, sheds and log huts were 
numerous, and occupied by the merriest people that ever danced to 
the extemporized fiddle made of cornsticks, or turned a hoe-cake on a 
long-handled gridiron; whose life overflowed with glee, fun and frolic, 
and French vivacity. Such were the primitive inhabitants of Prairie 
du Chien. 

"I think it was Mr. Burnett who introduced me to Colonel Taylor 
and his wife. The family occupied a neat and comfortable frame build- 
ing outside of the limits of the fort. But what a contrast was there 
between that family and every other home I had visited in the city! 
.Mrs. Taylor was advanced in years. She did her own work. I could 
see her eyes were not a stranger to tears. She understood I had come 
to teach her children, little Dick and Bess. They were jovial as 
crickets, and they laughed and talked with me incessantly, but the 
father and mother were reticent and lonely as if oppressed by a deep 



NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 27 

family affliction, not to be disclosed to a stranger." This state of feel- 
ing Mr. Mills has no doubt, was caused by the marriage of their 
daughter to Jefferson Davis. 

One case of slaveholding at the fort Air. Mills distinctly rcmem- 
bers. It was by a Lieutenant Harris, an intemperate man who was 
afterward cashiered. When he left Prairie du Chien he took his negro 
with him. The slave, Judge Mills thinks, was as glad to go as was 
Ins master. Apparently not long afterward, but whether or not on 
the journey from Prairie du Chien I do not know, Harris was 
drowned in Rock river, probably within the bounds of Illinois. 

Very soon the question of slavery was presented to Mr. Mills in 
a peculiar form. To serve a superintendent of an Indian school near 
Prairie du Chien there came thither in 1833 (September 7th) Rev. 
David Lowrey. He came from Nashville. Tennessee. This movement 
he calls "leaving his native land." Writing to "The Revivalist" of 
Nashville, he seems to have been glad to say: "This is a free land. No 
slavery can be admitted here." But when he set about organizing a 
church, as he soon did, he found that questions involving slavery were 
by no means confined to the South. One of those who proposed en- 
tering into the new church was Andrew Cochrane. He had come 
From Missouri to superintend the erection of the new fort or, at 
least, the putting up of the stone work thereof. He held slaves in 
Missouri. Young Mills, also a prospective member of the proposed 
organization, was so decided an abolitionist that he was reluctant to 
■ iiicr into covenant with a church that was to have a slaveholder m 
its fellowship. However, his objections were finally overcome, prob- 
ably because Cochrane was to return soon to Missouri. 

Another circumstance concerning slavery at Prairie du Chien 
Judge Mills remembers well. Moreover, it is mentioned by Rev. Al- 
lied Brunson in his autobiography. To him it was, no doubt, a mat- 
i 1 of intense mortification, as it seems to have been one of keen de- 
light to his enemies. There was in the fort a slave who was known 
by the name of his master, a Captain Day. This negro hid been 
among the Ojibways and had learned their language. Mr. Brunson 
was interested in mission work among these Indians, and thought that 
Day would prove to be an efficient helper in that service. Acco ; "d ; ng- 
ly he raised $1,200, Judge Mills says, and bought the proposed mis- 
sionary. But Day proved to be different from what Air. Brunson 
had supposed that he was or he underwent, for the worse, a change 
in character. So, from the missionary point of view, the investment 
proved to be total loss. 23 . 



23. Sunn years afterward, when Judge Mills was on a journey from Fort 
Snelling or thereabout to the head of Lake Superior, he saw this colored man Day 



28 NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 

After his removal to Grant county, which was in 1843, Judge Mills 
was actively instrumental in legally terminating one instance of the 
relation of master and slave. There was a man named Graves who 
lived at or near Hurricane Grove, a hamlet in the town of Lancaster. 
Graves, who was a Christian man, desired not only that his slave 
be free but that he have legal evidence that such was the fact. Ac- 
cordingly a friendly suit was brought in order that the validity of the 
manumission papers might be without possibility of doubt. These 
papers were for the protection of the negro in case of his proposed 
return to Missouri. 

Another case of negro slavery at Green Bay remains to be men- 
tioned. This was of a girl named Maria, a full-blooded negro, who 
was brought from Washington, D. C, by Governor John S. Horner. 
He is remembered in our Wisconsin history as the man who attempt- 
ed to continue here the legal existence of the Territory of Michigan 
after the state of Michigan had been admitted to the Union. He and 
his wife were from Virginia. About 1837 or 1838. so Dr. Porter, my 
informant, thought 24 they brought the slave girl with them to Gi 
Bay. Rev. Stephen Peet, then of Green Bay, later of the First Pres- 
byterian church, Milwaukee, told Maria that she was free. Thereupon 
she left her former master and mistress, who were thereby made so 
angry that they ceased to attend the church of which Mr. Peet was 
pastor. Maria afterward served in the family of my informant, who 
was Mr. Peet's successor at Green Bay. Maria was married in 1845. 
Years afterward, when she had become a widow, she again met Mr. 
and Mrs. Porter, and announced to them her great sorrow in the 
plaintive wail of the Bethlehem widow of three thousand years ago, 
"Call me Mara, for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me." 
Once more she served in the family of Dr. Porter, when he was army 
chaplain at Fort D. A. Russell, Wyoming. This Maria Grant died in 
1892, perhaps the last of the sixty or more who have been held as 
slaves here in Wisconsin. 

In Beetown and about six miles west of Lancaster is a place 
to which has been given, in late years, the name Flora Fountain. But 
its popular designation was, and perhaps is, Slabtown. At its be- 
ginning the settlement was composed in large proportion of colored 
people. Among these were Isaac and Charles Shepherd, of whom it 



who had taken to himself an Indian wife and. from a business point of view, was 
making good use of his freedom. 

24. "Early in April, 1836, Acting Governor Horner had moved to Wisconsin, ex- 
pecting to hold the same relation to Wisconsin that he had held to Michigan,"— 
Alfred Branson, D. D., -'Wisconsin Historical Collections," Vol. II., p. 306. 

I dare not say that .Maria was brought at the time mentioned by Dr. Bran- 
son. When Mr. and Mrs. Horner brought the slave girl, they came, Dr. Porter told 
Hi'', 63 way of St. Louis. 



NEGRO SLAVERY IN WISCONSIN. 29 

was currently reported that they were brought from Virginia as slaves 
by William Horner, and that they refused to return. Different from 
this, however, are the impressions of Rev. Samuel Eaton who, 
for forty years and more, was virtually bishop of Lancaster. 25 He 
thinks that these negroes had been free in Virginia before they were 
brought to Wisconsin. So that, according to this understanding, we 
have here no story of either slavery or emancipation. 

Very manifest has been made to me in the preparation of this 
narrative the influence of anti-slavery men from the South, especially 
from that part of it that was once the slaveholding portion of the 
West. Into this Southern or South-and- Western abolitionism, we 
do not need to take a very deep look to find therein the kind of man- 
hood produced in our middle Atlantic states, and farther west, out of 
Scotch-Irish and kindred blood. Hearty, hospitable, faithful m friend- 
ship, determined, and sometimes vengeful, in enmity, reverent toward 
God but inclined to hold themselves on equality with all who are less 
than He; commonly orthodox if anything — and usually they are some- 
thing — in religion, often narrow-minded and almost always prejudiced 
against something or somebody are (or were) these people. And per- 
haps we may say about the same things of many of their descendants. 
Terrible fighters were the pioneers if this stock, altogether too ready 
with guns and fists. Allied in some respects to the Puritans, they are 
not to l>c confounded with them, and it is not fair to credit the sons 
and the influence of New England with what these men have done. As 
Woodrow Wilson has pointed out, there went into the making of this 
nation somewhat that came to it by way neither of Massachusetts bay 
nor of Janus river. Upon men of this class fell the duty, for the most 
part, of contending, face to face, with whatever there was here of ac- 
tual slavery. These in Wisconsin and elsewhere were as ready as 
any for the great conflict of 1861-1865, and none fought more sturdily 
and successfully. If, to our shame and sorrow, slave blood nas been 
drawn by the lash upon Wisconsin soil, and has fallen thereon even 
in murder, we remember with solemn pride and increasing honor that 
the blood of our men, of all races, fell upon slave soil and helped to 
make it free, as we believe, forever. 

JOHN NELSON DAVIDSON. 



25. One of his suns, Edward Dwigbt Eaton, is president of Beloit College. 



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